At least nine people are still missing Thursday after the blast the previous day at a factory in Sergiev Posad, northeast of Moscow, the Russian investigative committee charged with the investigation said.
In a statement published on Telegram, the regional branch of the committee of inquiry said that “60 people have sought medical attention, nine are missing and one woman has died in hospital.”
For its part, the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations had informed AFP a few minutes earlier that twelve people were still missing. “The research is ongoing,” he said.
According to regional authorities, a violent explosion occurred in a warehouse for pyrotechnic material about fifty kilometers from Moscow on Wednesday.
A total of 400 people were “involved” in the search, the Ministry for Emergency Situations announced on Telegram on Thursday and published pictures of the destroyed site. You could see tangled bricks, excavators in action and helmeted rescuers, sometimes accompanied by sniffer dogs.
“The investigators conducted searches inside the Piro-Ross company because a fire broke out in its warehouse,” the Russian investigative committee confirmed.
“34 people were heard as witnesses” and the technical director of the company “as a suspect” arrested, added the investigating authority.
The governor of the region, Andrei Vorobiov, assured on Wednesday that investigators assume that it was not a drone attack, while the Russian capital and its region are regularly the target of such attacks, which are attributed to Ukraine.